Virtual trade show service providers have a serious problem - not knowing what to name their baby. Virtual Tradeshow, Online Event, Online Tradeshow, Virtual Expo, Virtual Environment, Virtual Show. Lately, event-management companies have joined the party, so we also have Virtual Experiential Services launched through Virtual Experience platforms.
Earlier at least we used to know the top player for robust webcasts, but now even they have started doing virtual shows, thus hurting their unique positioning built over the years. I was talking to a veteran publisher from the industry last week, and my worst fears were confirmed. The market of trade show organizers is confused with all this new terminology. To all that add the word 'social' to taste, and now you will have the perfect recipe for a virtual experiential social networking environment and lead generation event solution.
When we at iTradeFair.com first began calling our offering a virtual trade show, we created visuals of trade show booths and used the trade show metaphor in our messaging to help the market make the connection and leap over the learning curve. What has however, been happening lately, is that virtual trade show providers have taken that metaphor quite literally - straining to recreate the visual effects of a real convention center. These virtual experiences, as they are being labeled are mind-bogglingly slow to load on the screen and painfully two-dimensional to navigate with ease. Special efforts to un-level the playing field by offering 'real estate' at the portal entrance to the highest bidders is an example of the tactile-event mindset limiting the immense growth-potential of the virtual trade show (for want of a better name). Wayfinding in such environments is a nightmare; prompting trade show veterans to go ballistic every time the phrase 'virtual trade show' is mentioned to describe these venues. Organizers of such venues gushing about the virtual lounges and the chat functionality may hurt their own credibility - it's a text chatroom, for crying out loud. Alright, throw in a video-chat. It's still a chatroom. Why not keep it simple? I am sure that such environments please the branding agencies, but what about the attendee?
Did anyone look at the abandon-rates of these experiential environments? It is not simply who visited your online venue that matters - it is also how many would have liked to visit that is of consequence here.
In the ultimate analysis your typical virtual trade show site is just an engaging yet structured way of presenting information while collecting audience data for follow-up. If only we figure out how to keep it simple, we will see acceptance rates increase in the millions as against the present mere thousands that put aside their work to take part in these online events. Unfortunately, the way these sites are structured today are quite unwelcoming - designed to discourage the bulk of the potential traffic. We at iTradeFair.com are guilty of the same issue even though we are constantly trying to simplify the navigation. We do get very positive comments about the simplicity and elegance of our itradefairs, but we have a lot more work to do in that direction. Hopefully, we will also establish a simple name by which to refer to our virtual trade shows, a name that does not confuse the potential users. Or like some of our customers prefer, we might simply resign ourselves to calling it an itradefair.
